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VOD Log: We’re the Millers

The terrific TBS promo for We’re the Millers had a lot to do with my desire to see the film. This promo does not exist anywhere on the internet, that I can find, other than the fragment pasted below — and that’s a shame. TBS should be proud of its promos. I do have a small problem with it — there is no girl playing a saxophone on the beach in the movie. There’s not even a beach. The musical backdrop, indeed, has no relation to the film at all — which technically amounts to perjury. However, I certainly can’t ding a movie based on a television network’s independent ad campaign for it.

We’re the Millers falls in the sub-50% zone on Rotten Tomatoes. One critic wrote that “The filmmakers lack the courage of their convictions.” Maybe so — but I know that going in. Put another way, I judge a movie on what it is, not on what it isn’t. I’m not expecting high art or tense edginess. I’m expecting Jason Sudeikis and Jennifer Aniston in a fairly mindless comedy.

And it works on that level. There’s something likable about these characters, and this story — raunchy and banal as it often is. It comes nowhere close to comparable films Vacation or Due Date, but for what it is, it succeeds — barely. 6/10